The US President is going to be a man who has painted himself, with apparent pride, as a racist, homophobic, misogynist. Here’s hoping that was just campaigning.

What I don’t understand is why anyone is shocked he got elected? It’s been the absolute inevitable result of that election since Brexit. And now the world has to live with it. You can draw many inferences from this about American blue collar workers, some of which are quite worrying. But actually, a different and intriguing idea did occur to me from all of this.

In one of the Scandinavian countries, can’t remember which one Denmark, I think? The, political parties have capped advertising budgets. This means that instead of seeing bullshit advertising, folks see debates on TV about the real issues. They investigate the pros and cons they talk about stuff, it’s a cerebral thing not a media circus and it’s about this issues involved, not the personalities. Their election turn outs are very high, over 80%.

In the US political advertising is a multi million dollar business. The turn out for elections there is around 48%.

So, my theory is this.

Most people are smart enough to know that advertising is complete bullshit. If it’s not funny, it tends to be pretentious shite. Therefore, if we see advertising for politics, the message we receive, could be that adverts = bullshit, therefore if political parties advertise, eventually, what people feel, far from informed, is lied to, fobbed off, manipulated and advertised to. They conclude that politics = bullshit.

The more the parties advertise to try and win us round, the more we, the intelligent ones, equate politics with advertising aka bullshit.

It may well be that I’m not the only person of reasonable intelligence and/or principles who is repelled by most of politics and politicians right now. Whatever it is that’s turning off the reasonable moderate members of the electorate, the end result appears to be that many stop voting. Me, I’m a woman, people died so I could vote so I will always vote even if I just spoil my paper. But I think that there are many moderate thinkers who are a bit naive, for example, some young people who have not yet learned that if you want the equivalent of clean washing you have to put your hands in the dirty water to grab it. There is a point to voting, it being that had they bothered the result might be different.

Could it be that when politics is advertised, we distrust it and stop voting? It does seem that a big proportion of the folks too disgusted to vote are those of us who believe in moderation and basic human decency. The sort of folks who really, really don’t want to feel they’ve been suckered by advertisers. And that leaves two groups. The extremists, who are playing a numbers game so will always vote, and the kinds of folks who will do whatever the vile racist rags like the Daily Mail, the Sun or its US equivalent tells them to.

Never mind, at least we have four years of cracking political satire ahead of us.

13 responses to “Oh no! The world’s been tangoed!”

Refreshing perspective, MT. Thanks for sharing. I will also say, however, that in Trump’s case, the TV news media willingly gave over their airtime – perhaps hundreds of millions of US dollars worth — to a man who proceeded to shock, then de-sensitize viewers to his lies and unethical utterings. It was such an easy way to draw viewers.
CNN and Fox News made hundreds of millions from their choices to capitalize on the shock and awe provided by Trump. Yes, the majority of White Americans voted for him. Yes, the hypocritical majority of White evangelicals voted for him too. But the media, the Republican party and the Republican FBI director must own their great part of the shame too.

CNN and Fox News are the North American equivalent of our shitty tabloids, I suspect. There’s so much bullshit in the average presidential campaign I have no idea how the every day American can possibly make an informed choice.

I think they’re desperately hoping he didn’t mean what he said. I’m desperately hoping that. I am just resigned to it as I have been from the moment he got the nomination. Because in politics, the likelihood of something happening is directly proportional to the strength of my desire for it not to happen. And I really really didn’t want this.

Indeed. I was stunned and pleased when Blair got in, totally surprised, and then look what happened 😦 Total fucking disaster zone.

I was equally stunned with Brexit but we won’t go there again.

But this? I wanted Clinton to get the nomination over Obama eight years ago. But no. Black man trumps (!) white woman. Now, we get white man trumps white woman. America can’t handle smart women. New society and all that. Look at Julia Gillard in Australia 😦 How was she victimised.

It seems we have more in common with our cousins across the pond than we ever thought. At least it is now proven that we aren’t the only country with an average IQ in single figures. If you believe Mr Donald Fart’s placatory words since he won – then all will be OK, really it will ……and I mean that sincerely….yes I do [NOT].
It should also save some embarrassment having somebody else to laugh at too. Western Europe should be very afraid, if only because their version of extremism is so much worse and those fascist grumbling voices are nagging and chipping away ever more.
BTW, I’ve had an ear worm all day: REM: ‘It’s the end of the world as we know it’. I’m really not so sure if I feel fine about it though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0GFRcFm-aY

If Trump were standing up publicly and condemning the violence that has sprung up nationwide since the election results were announced, I would feel a slight measure of reassurance. But I have heard nothing — and the violence that he condoned and encouraged is rampant now. I would love for him to step up and become a man of honour and commitment to the good of the people of America and to his mandate to govern well.

It’s tough being in the neighbourhood with a violent bully next door, and I suspect that living in the same house as that bully is significantly more challenging.

Yeh, I’d have really liked to know the issues on that one. I still feel that we never got to the bottom of it. Trump I don’t get, but I guess there was a protest vote from a fair few people and someone who looks a bit of a narcissist but is untainted by the world of politics may well look like a better bet for some folks.

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